My commentary on Shroud of Turin related matters. I am an Australian evangelical Christian in my 70s. I am persuaded by the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is the burial sheet of Jesus Christ and bears His crucified and resurrected image.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Tetradiplon and the Shroud of Turin

[Above (enlarge): Tetradiplon and the Shroud of Turin illustrated: The full-length Shroud of Turin (1), is doubled four times (2 through 5), resulting in Jesus' face within a rectangle, in landscape aspect (5), exactly as depicted in the earliest copies of the Image of Edessa, the 11th century Sakli church, Turkey (6) and the 10th century icon of King Abgar V of Edessa holding the Image of Edessa, St. Catherine's monastery, Sinai (7).]

[Above: "Tetradiplon," The Definitive Shroud of Turin FAQ, Dan Porter, 2009. Note that this otherwise useful illustration of how the Greek word tetradiplon ("four doubled" when applied to the Shroud, results in Jesus' face within a rectangle in landscape aspect, exactly as it is in the 10th century St. Catherine's monastery icon of Edessa's King Abgar V holding the Image of Edessa, shows only three doublings of the Shroud.]

"four-doubled" (Greek tetradiplon), with Jesus' face uppermost, results in Jesus' face only within a rectangle, in landscape aspect (exactly as in the oldest copies of the Image of Edessa), has a flaw in that it only shows three doublings of the Shroud (see above).

Even Ian Wilson's illustrations of this in his books (e.g. "The Evidence of the Shroud," 1986, p.113; "Holy Faces, Secret Places," 1991, p.142; "The Blood and the Shroud," 1998, p.153; "The Turin Shroud," 2000, p.111; and "The Shroud," 2010, p.141), show the Shroud doubled only three times.

But some months ago I cut out a photo of the Shroud and proved to myself that the Shroud can be doubled four times in such a way that it results in Jesus' face in a rectangular segment of the cloth, in landscape aspect, exactly as it is in early copies of the Image of Edessa. Here I will show how it can be done, in what is a reasonable way to fold a long cloth, minimising strain at its fold edges.

Try it yourself: 1) print out a full-length photo of the Shroud; 2) cut out the Shroud from the page; 3) fold the cutout of the Shroud in two between the two head images, with the front head image (face) uppermost; 4) then, as described below, fold the doubled Shroud cutout three more times (making a total of four doublings), with the face image always uppermost; and 5) you hold in your hand a copy of the Image of Edessa or Mandylion - a portrait of Jesus' head within a rectangle, in landscape aspect!

Starting with a full-length photograph of the Shroud (see above right), first cut out the Shroud itself. Then fold the Shroud copy in two, with the fold between the two head images, and with the front side uppermost. This is the first doubling.

[Left: Result of the first doubling, with the front half of the Shroud uppermost.]

Taking the first doubling photo of the Shroud, fold it a quarter way down from its top edge, across Jesus' chest. Jesus' face appears centred in a rectangle in landscape aspect. Fold the remaining three-quarters of the first doubling upwards, keeping Jesus' face uppermost in the bottom quarter. The back lower half of the Shroud photo will appear upside down above Jesus' face quarter (see right). This is the second doubling.

[Right: Result of the second doubling (ignore my white join lines), with Jesus' face now in the bottom third, and the lower half of His back upside down, above Jesus' face, making up the top two-thirds of this second doubling.]

Now, with the result of the second doubling, fold the top two-thirds, the upside down back of Jesus' legs at the top of Jesus' face panel, down below Jesus' face panel. Jesus' face panel now appears to be on top of the lower part of the front of Jesus' legs (see left). This is the third doubling.

[Left: Result of the third doubling, with Jesus' face panel uppermost and the lower front of Jesus' legs appearing under it.]

Finally, taking the third doubling, fold back the front lower panel of Jesus' legs under Jesus' face panel (see right). Jesus' face now

[Right: Result of the fourth doubling, with Jesus' face alone within a rectangle, in landscape aspect, exactly as it is in the oldest copies of the Image of Edessa or the Mandylion (see below).]

appears, after four doublings of the Shroud, alone in a rectangle, in landscape aspect, exactly as it appears in the oldest copies of the Image of Edessa (see below). This is the fourth doubling.

This is consistent with major foldlines at one-eighth intervals, found on the Shroud by Dr John Jackson from raking light photographs of the Shroud taken in 1978 by the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP).

[Left (enlarge): Diagram of raking light photograph of the Shroud, taken in 1978 by STURP, showing major foldlines consistent with the Shroud having been folded at one-eighth intervals, discovered by Dr John Jackson: Ian Wilson, "The Evidence of the Shroud," 1986, p.123.]

As previously mentioned, below are two of the oldest surviving copies of the Image of Edessa or Mandylion. As can be seen, in both of them, Jesus' face is within a rectangle, in landscape aspect, exactly as obtained above by doubling the Shroud of Turin four times. I cannot show it here, but readers can verify it for themselves by following the above instructions, that when the fourth doubling is viewed from the side in profile, one sees four doublings of the Shroud.

The Greek word tetradiplon is a compound of tetra ("four") and diplon ("doubled)," hence "four-doubled." In all of known ancient Greek literature, tetradiplon occurs only in connection with the Image of Edessa. Its first known occurrence is in the Acts of Thaddeus, a sixth century update of an earlier (c. AD 400) story in the Doctrine of Addai, about Edessa's King Abgar V (c. 4 BC - AD 50) receiving an image of Jesus imprinted on a cloth. The sixth century Acts of Thaddeus added new information to that earlier story that the cloth was a sindon (a large linen sheet) which was tetradiplon ("four doubled"):

"In those times there was a governor of the city of Edessa, Abgarus [Abgar V] by name. And there having gone abroad the fame of Christ, of the wonders which He did, and of His teaching, Abgarus having heard of it, was astonished, and desired to see Christ, and could not leave his city and government. And about the days of the Passion and the plots of the Jews, Abgarus, being seized by an incurable disease, sent a letter to Christ by Ananias the courier ... And Ananias, having gone and given the letter, was carefully looking at Christ, but was unable to fix Him in his mind. And He knew as knowing the heart, and asked to wash Himself; and a towel [Gk. tetradiplon] was given Him; and when He had washed Himself, He wiped His face with it. And His image having been imprinted upon the linen [Gk. sindon], He gave it to Ananias, saying: Give this, and take back this message, to him that sent you: Peace to you and your city!" ("The Acts of Thaddaeus, One of the Twelve," New Advent, 29 January 2010).

That the Shroud of Turin, when doubled four times results in Jesus' face within a rectangle, in landscape aspect, exactly as depicted in the earliest copies of the Image of Edessa/Mandylion, is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Image of Edessa/Mandylion is the Shroud of Turin, doubled four times, mounted on a board, and framed, so that only Jesus' face is visible. And therefore that the Shroud of Turin existed in the sixth century, and indeed in the first century, as the Image of Edessa's connection with Edessa's first century King Abgar V, attests!

12 comments:

Anonymous
said...

'And He knew as knowing the heart, and asked to wash Himself; and a towel [Gk. tetradiplon] was given Him; and when He had washed Himself, He wiped His face with it. And His image having been imprinted upon the linen [Gk. sindon], He gave it to Ananias, saying: Give this, and take back this message, to him that sent you: Peace to you and your city!"

So this is clearly not referring to a should but a cloth with an image of Christ's face on it that Christ asked to be given to the city of Edessa. Can you explain how it could be a shroud?

>'And He knew as knowing the heart, and asked to wash Himself; and a towel [Gk. tetradiplon] was given Him; and when He had washed Himself, He wiped His face with it. And His image having been imprinted upon the linen [Gk. sindon], He gave it to Ananias, saying: Give this, and take back this message, to him that sent you: Peace to you and your city!"

>So this is clearly not referring to a should but a cloth with an image of Christ's face on it that Christ asked to be given to the city of Edessa.

As I stated in my post above:

"Its first known occurrence is in the sixth century Acts of Thaddeus, an update of an earlier story about Edessa's King Abgar V (c. 4 BC-AD 50) receiving an image of Jesus imprinted on a "four doubled" (tetradiplon) linen sheet (sindon):"

It was the earlier Doctrine of Addai which `explained' that the image was imprinted on the cloth when Jesus wiped His face on it.

The Acts of Thaddeus updated this with the 6th century discovery that the cloth was a four-doubled (tetradiplon large linen sheet (sindon).

I have revised my post above to make this clearer:

"Its [tetradiplon's] first known occurrence is in the Acts of Thaddeus, a sixth century update of an earlier (c. AD 400) story in the Doctrine of Addai, about Edessa's King Abgar V (c. 4 BC-AD 50) receiving an image of Jesus imprinted on a cloth. The sixth century Acts of Thaddeus added new information to that earlier story that the cloth was a sindon (a large linen sheet) which was tetradiplon ("four doubled"):"

The Acts of Thaddeus did not challenge the earlier Doctrine of Addai's `explanation' how Jesus' image came to be imprinted on the cloth.

Presumably, if the writer of the Acts of Thaddeus knew that it was not only the image of Jesus' face which was on the cloth, but that of His whole body, naked, tortured, bloodstained and dead, he was not at liberty to write that.

Those among the Edessan clergy who knew that shocking new information would have a powerful vested interest to withhold it from the Edessan public, to whom it would be profoundly disturbing.

Therefore it is not surprising that the Edessan clergy would maintain the traditional story about how the image was imprinted on the cloth, while permitting the writer of the Acts of Thaddeus to update it with the new information about the cloth itself, that it was a sindon (a large linen sheet), and that it was tetradiplon (four-doubled).

>Can you explain how it could be a shroud?

See above.

Stephen E. Jones-----------------------------------Comments are moderated. Those I consider off-topic, offensive or sub-standard will not appear. I reserve the right to respond to any comment as a separate blog post.

Stephen don't forget the sturp physicist John Jackson performed a raking test on the shroud and found the folding creases that match a tetradipion. I can't post the links because for some reason I can't copy and paste on here from my iPod , but this is even more evidence in favor of it.Great article againGod blessBippy123

>Stephen don't forget the sturp physicist John Jackson performed a raking test on the shroud and found the folding creases that match a tetradipion.

Thanks for reminding me. I have now inserted into my post above:

"This is consistent with major foldlines at one-eighth intervals, found on the Shroud by Dr John Jackson from raking light photographs of the Shroud taken in 1978 by the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STuRP)" and I have uploaded a diagram of those foldlines from Ian Wilson, "The Evidence of the Shroud," 1986, p.123.

>I can't post the links because for some reason I can't copy and paste on here from my iPod , but this is even more evidence in favor of it.

>So it really was the Shroud and the clergy knew this but they put out the story that it was an image of the face of Christ while alive?

No. As I said, the `explanation' of how Jesus' face became imprinted on the cloth by Him wiping His face with it, was in the third century (c. AD 400) Doctrine of Addai.

That `explanation' pre-dates the Shroud being at Edessa (AD 526), and is more evidence for Markwardt's theory that the Shroud was in Antioch from c. AD 47-526, and hidden above Antioch's Gate of the Cherubim from c. AD 326-526.

The sixth century Acts of Thaddeus did not change the earlier story of how the image was imprinted on the cloth, but it did add new information about the cloth itself, that it was a large linen sheet (sindon) which was four-doubled (tetradiplon), i.e. folded in eight.

That presumably means that some in the Edessan clergy leadership became aware of the full-length cloth under the top face panel.

Although it is possible they could see that the cloth was four-doubled in profile from the edge of the frame, without them actually having unfastened the cloth from its frame, unfolding it and looking at the image of Jesus' naked, bloodstained, crucified and dead body.

>At what point was the truth revealed? In 944 or later?

There seems to be no unambiguous record of when it was discovered that behind the Image of Edessa's face image was the full-length Shroud. The first definite reference was in 1130:

"All this makes all the more intriguing the evidence that someone, sometime after the Mandylion's arrival in Constantinople, seems to have undone the gold trelliswork covering the cloth, untwined the fringe from the surrounding nails, carefully unfolded the cloth, and, for the first time since the days of the apostles, set eyes on the concealed full-length figure. Frustratingly, this is another of those moments in the Mandylion's history that has gone unrecorded, yet is crucial to it. It is attested as a real happening from an impressive array of circumstantial evidence. The first indications, and the most direct, come from western authors. The earliest, datable to sometime before 1130, is an interpolation in an original eighth-century sermon by Pope Stephen III. [von Dobschutz, E., Christusbilder, Leipzig, 1889, p, 134] Referring to the Mandylion, it tells us: `For the very same mediator between God and man [Christ], that he might in every way satisfy the king [Abgar], stretched his WHOLE BODY ON A CLOTH, white as snow, on which the glorious image of the Lord's face and the LENGTH OF HIS WHOLE BODY was so divinely transformed that it was sufficient for those who could not see the LORD BODILY IN THE FLESH, to see the transfiguration made on the cloth.' [Green, M., "Enshrouded in Silence," Ampleforth Journal, LXXIV, 1969, p.333]" (Wilson, I., "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus?," 1979, pp.157-158. My emphasis).

On or after 1130 that there are further such references (my emphases):

"Another account, from the prodigious History of the Church written by the English monk Ordericus Vitalis about 1130, seemed to derive from the first. According to this version: `Abgar reigned as toparch of Edessa. To him the Lord Jesus sent ... a most precious cloth with which he wiped the sweat from his face, and on which shone the Savior's features miraculously reproduced. This displayed to those who gazed on it the likeness and proportions of the BODY OF THE LORD.' [Ordericus Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica, part III, bk. IX, 8]" (Wilson, 1979, p.158).

"A Vatican Library codex, also datable to the twelfth century, repeated this tradition in its version of Christ's letter to Abgar: `If indeed you desire to look bodily upon my face, I send you a cloth on which know that the image not only of my face, but of my WHOLE BODY had been divinely transformed.' [Vatican Library Codex No. 5696, fol. 35, published in P. Savio, Ricerche storlche sulla Santa Sindone, Turin, 1957, footnote 31. p. 340]" (Wilson, 1979, p.158).

"By the thirteenth century, Gervase of Tilbury, a great retailer of the gossip of the time, not only repeated these words of Christ to Abgar, but added: `Far it is handed down from archives of ancient authority that the Lord prostrated himself FULL LENGTH on most white linen, and so by divine power the most beautiful likeness not only of the face, but also of the WHOLE BODY OF THE LORD was impressed upon the cloth.' [Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, III, from Scriptores rerum brunsvicensium, ed. G. Leibnitz, Hanover, 1707, I, pp. 966-67]" (Wilson, 1979, p.159).

While these may seem late, they are only the earliest surviving records of the discovery in Constantinople after 944 that behind Jesus' face image was His full-length, whole body image. It may have been discovered not long after the Image/Shroud arrived in Constantinople in 944, but it was either not recorded or that recording was lost.

Whichever, this lack of any Constantinople document recording the discovery of Jesus' full-length, naked, bloodstained, crucified and dead body under His face image, is further evidence of how shocking this was to the Byzantine mindset. And helps explain that if the Edessan ruling clergy were aware of it from 526, why they kept it a closely guarded secret.

And even though these 1130+ references are at least 186 years after the Image/Shroud arrived in Constantinople, they are still at least 130 years before the earliest possible radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, 1260.

Stephen, thank you again for adding John Jacksons raking finds. You've done an incredible job of adding all the bread crumb evidence together. Have a few friends that have been debating the shroud and I'm going to lead them to your post here. They are really excited about this connection here.God bless

>You've done an incredible job of adding all the bread crumb evidence together.

That's all I do, take evidence of the Shroud's authenticity discovered by others, e.g. Ian Wilson, and publish it on the Internet.

>Have a few friends that have been debating the shroud and I'm going to lead them to your post here.

Great!

>They are really excited about this connection here.

Thanks for the feedback.

>God bless

And you.

Stephen E. Jones-----------------------------------Comments are moderated. Those I consider off-topic, offensive or sub-standard will not appear. I reserve the right to respond to any comment as a separate blog post.

This part of the story is false:Jesus asked for a towel to wash himself and then wiped the cloth on his face. With his image imprinted upon the towel, Jesus gave it to Ananias and t.. Thaddeus to guide the king and the city

The Shroud is a 14 foot long burial cloth but it has the image of Jesus on it (very faint actually). The image imprinted after Jesus died and it is not from washing his face.

Legends obscure facts. The legend of the Veronica cloth (she supposedly wiped his face on the way to crucifixion) is false (there is no Veronica cloth) It was widely told for centuries. It is based on the Mandylion (never made by human hands -- therefore not an icon)

The Mandylion (the Shroud) was often described as a facial image because it was displayed as folded (not the full length) and that is where the story of a face cloth came.

There is a face cloth (the Sudarium) but it too is a death cloth and its stains match the Shroud (Sindon) and so at one point both clothes were together (te grave). They each have type AB blood.

Type AB is the rarest (less than 3% have it) and blood typing was discovered in 1907. So blood tyhpe help to corroborate the relationship of the cloths.

>This part of the story is false:Jesus asked for a towel to wash himself and then wiped the cloth on his face. With his image imprinted upon the towel, Jesus gave it to Ananias and t[o] Thaddeus to guide the king and the city

Agreed that the sixth century Acts of Thaddeus, story of Jesus leaving an image of Himself on a towel by washing His face on it is false. As I wrote above, it was an Edessan explanation of how and why Jesus' image was on the Mandylion (the Shroud of Turin "doubled in four" - Gk tetradiplon), to maintain consistency with Edessa's earlier Doctrine of Addai story of Edessa's 1st century King Abgar receiving from Jesus His image on a towel. Which in turn is probably an earlier conflation of Jesus' letter to Abgar I, which is in Eusebius' 4th century Ecclesiastical History, and an earlier (at least 4th century and possibly even 1st century) knowledge of Jesus' image on the Mandylion/Shroud.

That in the sixth century the unique in all of known ancient Greek literature word tetradiplontetra "four" + diplon "doubled" = "four-doubled") was used of a cloth with Jesus' facial image on is proof beyond reasonable doubt that there was known in at least the sixth century to be a cloth with Jesus' image on which was one-eighth of a larger cloth. This can only be what we now call the Shroud of Turin, which when folded in eight shows Jesus face in landscape aspect, exactly as it appears in early copies of the Mandylion.

>The Shroud is a 14 foot long burial cloth but it has the image of Jesus on it (very faint actually). The image imprinted after Jesus died and it is not from washing his face.

>Legends obscure facts. The legend of the Veronica cloth (she supposedly wiped his face on the way to crucifixion) is false (there is no Veronica cloth) It was widely told for centuries. It is based on the Mandylion (never made by human hands -- therefore not an icon)

Agreed. The name "Veronica" is a combination of Latin vera "true" and ikon "image" = "true image", and therefore shows that the story of a woman named Veronica receiving Jesus' image on a towel she gave Him to wash his face with was false. But historians take ancient legends seriously as probably being based on facts. In this case that there was known to be an early (pre-4th century) image of Jesus, or at least of His face, on cloth.

>The Mandylion (the Shroud) was often described as a facial image because it was displayed as folded (not the full length) and that is where the story of a face cloth came.

Agreed. That's what my post above says.

>There is a face cloth (the Sudarium) but it too is a death cloth and its stains match the Shroud (Sindon) and so at one point both clothes were together (te grave). They each have type AB blood.

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